


scar tissue

by chii



Series: letters, scars and weddings [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Facial Shaving, Frottage, Injury, Injury Recovery, Kissing, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Season/Series 03 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-24 17:57:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12018063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chii/pseuds/chii
Summary: Five times Shiro or Keith ended up with scars from being injured and one time Shiro came back with only the one across his face. [s3 compliant/spoilers]___“New outfit. New hair. If you kept it, it’s--”Almost like you’re a different person.How does he even finish that sentence? They’re apparently going to have this talk here and now, while Shiro’s shaving and Keith’s hair is still wet from his shower. “Are you trying to reinvent yourself?”Shiro’s eyes slide up from where they’re focused on his chin in the mirror, and instead meet Keith’s through the reflection. “I don’t know. Would that be easier?”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> what's up here I am a year later writing a sequel to this damn fic. you don't have to read the other one to get the context here but it helps a little as it leads into the NEXT one which is like...probably 70% done? I cannot believe I had to write another 13k of BS just so I could write Keith and Shiro getting married. This is like, SUPER LOOSELY five times-ish fic.

**I.**

“How’d you get that?” Keith asks through a mouthful of messy burger, both Shiro and Matt looking angling themselves to see what he’s gesturing at with his pinkie finger.

 _That_ is a scar on his side, neat and silvery with age, too precise to be anything but surgical. 

“Wow, just gonna go and ask, no shame, huh? What if it were something serious?” Matt leans over, snagging another waffle fry from the slowly dwindling container. Shiro’s been the reason of most of them being eaten; he’d eaten a quarter of them before his shower. _He_ was the reason they’d ordered double on top of the order that was already for other people; they were his favorite item from the burger joint. 

When Matt bites into his burger, it squirts out the end and the resulting yelp and fumble of school work is enough to get Keith and Shiro snickering before Shiro seems to remember he was being asked a question.

The scar in question gets touched as Shiro pauses in sliding his tank top back on post-shower. “That? First, save me some of those french fries, Keith, and second, I crashed my bike when I was like...eleven or twelve, probably? Fell into a ditch and managed to be unlucky enough to land on some old metal from the bridge.” 

“Holy shit,” Matt whistles sympathetically. “I bet your mom pitched a fit.” 

Keith hasn’t met Shiro’s mom yet but is supposed to this summer. Matt and a few of the other guys they hang out with have, and from what he’s gathered, Shiro probably got a concerned earful. 

He sliced his hand open once; he’d gone to his dad to get it fixed but he’d been staring at the old radio again and was having another one of those moments where he wasn’t really there. _Cabinet has some bandages_ he’d said instead of even looking at it. When a bandage didn’t work, he opened up his dad’s kit and superglued it together. It didn’t heal badly, but there’s a slice that’s silvery with age like Shiro’s. 

Distantly, he tries to imagine his dad doing the same thing - telling him he had to be more careful, he was worried, he was going to have to ride his bike with a helmet and kneepads now. Doesn’t work; he can’t even begin to imagine it. 

Before he goes down that particular rabbit hole, he reaches out and dumps a good portion of the fries onto his plate for Shiro and goes back to his burger. 

There’s a restaurant just a short distance away that’s run by a woman with a son here; Keith’s never met him, but she insists that everyone calls her “Mama” and while he recalls exactly _nothing_ about his own mother, it doesn’t feel weird to acquiesce to this with how motherly she acts toward all of them. She’s a staple of the Garrison and the amount of times he’s been in Matt and Shiro’s room after hours eating food from her restaurant while they study is more than he can count. 

“Yeah, she was not happy,” Shiro agrees, sliding on a pair of trackpants. Keith’s careful not to stare longer than he should but it’s not fair Shiro looks so good in the Garrison uniform and in those pants. When he settles, papers to grade in one hand and plate in the other, Keith waits til he has both balanced where he wants them, and then delicately dumps the fries on his plate. It’s a ridiculous amount, but Shiro could eat that and then probably another order on top of it and still have room for more with how much he was exercising, prepping for any missions he was trying to get put on. “Hey, you’re my hero.” 

Despite how minor it is, how it’s basically nothing, just saving some food for a few minutes, Keith’s cheeks warm and he grins down at his plate. Before he says anything too stupid, he points to the mark on his hand, sheepish. “Sliced my hand open as a kid and superglued it back together again.” 

Matt grimaces but it’s Shiro who leans over and takes his hand, thumbing over the scar gently with a frown; it’s more physical contact than they usually initiate and Keith’s heart thuds awfully loud in his chest, so harsh he’s afraid it’s audible. Matt might not know a ton about his family situation, but Shiro knows all the dirty details. He can put two and two together - absent father, an injury with superglue rather than a bandaid. Rather than say anything else, or give anything away to Matt he rubs his thumb over Keith’s scar one more time. Abruptly, he seems to realize that he’s been holding his hand for _way_ too long and releases it. “At least you glued it all together right. With my luck I’d probably glue the it together crooked or something.” 

“I’ve never met someone who attracts trouble as much as you do,” Matt mutters, gesturing with his middle finger. Then, he pauses, leveling his pointer at Keith, accusingly. “Until you.” 

Once, he would have worried about Matt doing that - about his accusation, about whether or not Matt actually liked him or just tolerated him because Shiro kept this charity case around him and he was Shiro’s best friend. Now, he takes an unimpressed bite of burger and stares Matt down because that’s easier than focusing on the way that his heart is beating wildly and his hand feels too warm from Shiro’s attention. Matt likes him; there’s no doubt about that anymore. He’d been given a pair of leather gloves for his birthday; the consideration behind the gift had been jarring but Matt had just rolled his eyes and shoved the cake at him. _It’s your birthday, that’s what friends do_. Keith didn’t bother pointing out that he wasn’t the kind of person who had many friends so this whole thing is new to him. 

“I don’t attract trouble,” he says almost primly, and there’s a whole three seconds of silence before Matt and Shiro both start snickering. “Shut _up_.” 

“No, no, let him try and argue it, it’s kinda cute. You’re both hopeless,” Matt laughs, stealing one of the fries from Shiro’s plate just because he can, pointing with it this time. “You can’t deny it, though. You’re the one that needed stitches the first time you met him.” 

Okay, so maybe to a point trouble is attracted to the both of them, but that hadn’t exactly been Keith’s fault. He’d been off grounds during allowed hours and some idiot Garrison student a year or two over him had been drunk, being belligerent. 

What started as Keith telling him off turned into a scuffle and ended with Shiro taking a pocket knife to the arm, barely missing his chest. It wasn’t too deep, but Keith had dragged him off to the infirmary and sulked until Shiro was done and confirmed safe. Keith’s jacket smelled like stale liquor from where the guy had sloshed some on him; Shiro smelled like the hospital, all clean anesthetic and the weird, almost latex-y smell of the bandages.

A handful of stitches later, Shiro had looked at him very seriously and said _I took a knife for you, I feel like we have to be friends, now_. Keith hadn’t known how to protest, and truthfully, hadn’t wanted to too much when Shiro looked at him so earnestly. The rest was history. It was fitting, in a fucked-up way, that their first meeting left a mark on Shiro.

**II.**

The second time he gets injured and it leaves a mark is also while he’s around Keith. They’re at his parents’ place repairing that old hoverbike, hanging out in the garage while his parents do grocery shopping. Shiro’s not had much interest in helping since he’s still prepping for Kerberos, but he lingers while Keith works on it, quizzing them both on the parts he’s studying over. His interests lie more toward assembling the little ships he keeps on shelves at the Garrison; the fine detail work of it has always appealed to him more than something like this.

Earlier in the day, Shiro’s mom had found out about the pocket knife scar when she’d sent him out to go mow the lawn and he’d been walking around the kitchen shirtless and sweaty and so good that Keith had excused himself to the garage. At least there it was cool and there wasn’t Shiro looking better than anything else in the world. She’d been pissed, as predicted, but underneath all of that was _worry_. Keith couldn’t wrap his mind around it; he’d been elbow deep in the guts of the hoverbike when Shiro had come back out again, no longer shirtless. She wasn’t angry at him - she was angry at the other boy, and this mix of proud he’d been defending someone who needed it while angry he’d been injured for doing the right thing. 

Now that he’s been here with them long enough, he tries to imagine what his life would have been like if his parents were around this often. If they came to the Garrison’s parent’s day like all the others did. If he got cute little packages in the mail, or went home to see them during leave. If everyone didn’t go missing and leave him with strangers who often just wanted the check and nothing to do with him. He can’t, but he thinks maybe, if he were lucky, it’d be something like this. 

“Your mom’s--” Keith starts and then realizes that he doesn’t have any words for it, turning back to the work again, instead. That’s safe. “She’s really nice.” 

Blessedly, Shiro knows what he means and doesn’t press him for what he was fighting to say earlier. Instead, he hops up onto the stool next to Keith and peers over to watch him start rewiring bits and pieces together. “Yeah, she’s really -- she’s a good mom.” 

Keith hums in response and then makes a low, frustrated noise when he fails to get the wires to catch properly; the hole he needs to get the piece into is tiny and while his hands are small, sure, it requires way more precision than he can do with his arms this short and he’s already nicked his hand earlier on a sharp piece of metal in the way. 

“What’s up?” Shiro asks, angling the light hanging above them without needing to be asked for it, trying to peer down. 

“There’s a-- a stupid _wire_ that I’m trying to get in so the engine will _hopefully_ work but it’s--” Keith shoves his arm deeper and touches his tongue to the front of his teeth as he strains but now he’s reaching too far in and can’t see and -- “Son of a--”

“Hey, hey, let me try it,” Shiro soothes before Keith can get too pissed. He urges Keith’s hands out and steps in, taking a look at the diagram that Keith was referencing and then grabs the wire. Dutifully, Keith grabs the light since that’s about all he can do right now and watches Shiro angle himself, reaching down. It’s easier with his longer arms, the bastard; he gets it in two tries and grins up at Keith when it’s done but it’s on the withdraw that his hand gets caught and when he twists it, he slices a line up his right arm. It’s not dangerous, but it does spill blood and together they hurriedly rush to grab one of the clean towels from off to the side to wrap it up and staunch it before it gets too bad.

“Shit. _Shit_ , sorry, I didn’t think to--” Keith starts, fumbling through Shiro’s dad’s tool box for the first aid kit he knows is there. Behind him, Shiro’s dabbing at the sluggish flood of blood, slowly cleaning it up enough that they can start tending to it. Halfway through bandaging it, Keith looks up, staring straight into Shiro’s eyes with no worry about being flustered by it - he’s too focused on the reality of their situation. “Your mom is gonna _kill me_.” 

Loud laughter isn’t the response he expects when Shiro’s bleeding from a wound that Keith could have prevented, but it’s what he gets. 

“I’m _serious_ ,” he stresses, finishing the bandages up neatly, but now he’s grinning, too, which is really unfair because Shiro can always do that to him. “You heard what she threatened to do to the drunk guy who tried to stab you.” 

“I mean, to be fair, he actually did stab me, but the knife was like this big.” Shiro starts, holding fingers of his left hand a few inches apart. “Now your knife, on the other hand-” 

“I’m not stabbing you with my knife at any point, so shut up,” Keith mutters before he can finish that sentence. The bandages get checked over once more, no superglue is used and when it’s done, Shiro’s staring at him with some odd expression on his face, smiling way too softly for someone who almost needed stitches. “...what.” 

“Nothing,” Shiro answers, despite it very clearly being something. He licks the thumb of his left hand and smudges something on Keith’s cheek. “I’m glad you’re around to patch me up whenever I get hurt.” 

“You get injured again and I’m not gonna, just so you learn your lesson,” he threatens and they both know it’s empty, that Keith would patch him up a thousand times over if asked. Keith scrubs at his cheek with a fresh cloth but nothing comes off on it; maybe Shiro got it or there was nothing there to begin with. “I don’t like you getting hurt either way, okay. Especially not because you’re trying to help me out.” 

“I know.” Shiro hefts himself up and nods toward the garage door. “Make it up to me and help me study, okay? And besides, a few years from now, you probably won’t even know it was there.”

**III.**

As it turns out, a few years later it isn’t clear it was ever there, but that’s because that arm is gone altogether. Worse: right now, he’s hurt much more seriously than a scratch from some metal.

“Keith, it’s fine,” Shiro says and his voice doesn’t shake which makes it convincing all the way up until Keith presses a hand just above the glowing gouges in Shiro’s side. They’re pretty, in a horrific way, the soft violet glow bright enough that it reflects off of Keith’s hand. That gets a sharp inhale and both of Shiro’s legs tensing, heels digging into the desert ground, kicking dust up. “ _Keith_.” 

“Yeah, it looks really fine to me,” Keith bites back, and goes digging into the medkit for the bandages they’ll need. Shiro’s been holding a hand over it this whole time but now that they have fire and can rest for a little bit, he’s not letting Shiro get away with pretending like nothing happened, like Haggar didn’t take a huge chunk out of his side and leave something awful and glowing behind. _Please, be okay. The others need you to be okay, I need -- I need you to -_ Keith shuts down the line of thought before it goes too far and focuses on what he can control, which is patching him up.

On the positive side, Shiro’s mostly shut up and stopped protesting like he’s fine, which is a nice change. Once, Shiro’d promised that he’d never lie to Keith and Keith had stared him down and told him that in and of itself was a lie. They’d stopped with the pretense after that and Keith trusted Shiro to tell the truth where he needed. More often than not, _I’m fine_ meant the exact opposite.

Shiro’s head tilts back and Keith’s eyes catch on the strong line of his jaw, his bob of his Adam’s apple when he swallows, and then hurriedly go back to the medkit, pulling the bandages out. Getting Shiro out of the suit would probably do more harm than good right now; when night falls it’s going to be freezing. Bandaging over it is his only option. 

Some weird Altean disinfectant, bandages, and numbing cream are all they have that’s useful but it’ll have to be enough. He can’t glue it together like he did with his hand when he was a kid, and he doesn’t have anything to make a needle and thread out of. They were going to add that to the kits when they got back or so help him. Allura and Coran had thought them barbaric: the idea of sewing someone closed, but right now, Keith’d gladly do the whole loincloth and club thing if it meant having a needle and thread to fix Shiro’s side.

“Okay.” Keith scoots over next to him and frowns, the glow sickly with the flickering light of the campfire. “You’re gonna be fine.”

If it’s said more for himself than for Shiro, at least Shiro doesn’t say anything about it. Instead, he exhales through his teeth and sits up, inch by inch until Keith can start working on it. It can’t be comfortable, but Shiro doesn’t flinch save for the tightness in his jaw, around his eyes. Shiro’s always been strong; he had to, to go through what he did with the Galra but more than anything else Keith wishes that he didn’t have to be strong right now. 

They have to spare some of the bandages for wiping up the dirt and grit that got into the wounds, but more than anything else, Keith’s worried about putting the disinfectant on Shiro and causing him more pain. Ten thousand years and space travel and they don’t make disinfectant that doesn’t burn? 

“Just do it,” Shiro breathes, his eyes closed, lips twisting into an unsteady smile. “Some Altean alcohol is really, really low on the pain scale here.” 

It’s not alcohol, he wants to protest, but the sooner they get this done the sooner he can put the actual numbing cream on it and Shiro won’t be quite as hurt. He’s quick about it; Shiro doesn’t react more than inhale, exhale slow and even, his eyes closed. By the time Keith’s done, his fingers are slick with blood but the wound’s as clean as it’s going to get out here. The cream next, fingers wiped on the fresh end of the bandages to clean them first and then applied. If they shake when Keith does it, Shiro doesn’t call him out on it. No-- no, _worse_. He’s the one that’s in pain right now and he reaches out, curls his fingers around Keith’s wrist and tugs it up enough to press his forehead to it, trying to comfort him. 

“Stop that,” Keith breathes, pretending it’s an order and not an unsteady plea for Shiro to not have to always be so strong. This part is easier. The cream smears clear over his fingers and he starts at the top, smoothing it over his skin as gently as he can. The first touch makes Shiro shudder but each subsequent swipe of Keith’s fingers and he slowly, gradually starts to relax, the pain fading bit by bit. It won’t fix everything and there’s still the awful risk of infection while they’re stranded here. Worse -- Shiro’s likely got at least one broken bone from the way he’s breathing. There’s a wet noise on the tail of each inhale, a catch of his breath that Keith _hears_ every single time but Keith can’t do anything about that so he doesn’t press the issue. This, he can fix. Everything else later. 

Bandaging takes longer than he likes because each movement makes Shiro’s breathing hitch and he hates the idea of causing him any more pain than he’s in already. He manages to wind it around Shiro’s waist and still ends up with a little extra if they have to do a second round of it later. Anything else and the most they can do is hope that they find a way off this planet sooner rather than later. 

“You’re lucky your waist isn’t as big as your shoulders,” Keith mutters, tying it off. When it’s done, he cleans his hands as best as he can by wiping them on the already dirtied bandages. “Does it feel okay?” 

“Feels great,” Shiro laughs and then flinches at himself, mutter _oh, that was dumb_. It’s so painfully Shiro that for a moment, Keith’s chest aches. “How’re you holding up?” 

“Don’t ask stupid questions,” Keith mutters in response and Shiro blows out a breath in amusement before lifting his arm to let Keith slide under it on the uninjured side. For a moment, he thinks to protest; any sort of contact could hurt him, but it’s going to get cold and Keith’s...weak, right now, at the idea of losing him. He crawls over the long line of Shiro’s legs and gingerly tucks himself in to where he’s guided. In front of them, the fire crackles and pops, the warmth of it only more evident the colder it gets. The temptation to curl in closer, to drawn arm around Shiro’s waist and bury his face into Shiro’s chest is there, overwhelming. He can’t, though. He _can’t._ This is for warmth and comfort, not -- 

“Thanks for always taking care of me, Keith,” Shiro murmurs gently into Keith’s hair, squeezing a shoulder with his human hand.. Keith ducks his head and decidedly doesn’t look at any one thing, frowning. What is he even _talking_ about - in all the years that Shiro’s known him, he’s always been the one taking care of Keith. “You don’t have to say I would’ve done the same for you, we both know I would’ve. Just let me thank you for finding me. For coming out here.” 

“Of course I would!” Keith jerks his head around and stares, now, not sure what the hell Shiro’s unintentionally insinuating. “Shiro, I - the team needs you, of course we would have--” 

“Hey, hey--” Shiro interrupts him, still gentle without being condescending or mocking of Keith’s frustration. He’s so much _better_ at this and he’ll never see it. “That’s not what I meant. All I meant was thanks for being here to fix this. It doesn’t hurt as badly now. That’s it.” 

It’s not it, and Shiro doesn’t understand, he can’t _understand_ the way that him going missing was like an awful, gaping hole in his chest, like it’d been scooped out and nothing else could fill it. There aren’t words for that, for any sort of articulating how Shiro is so _important_ , how much he means to him, to all of them. Keith’s teeth grit together, fighting for something, for any sort of response that’s correct and then stops when Shiro smooths a hand through his hair, tugs him into a loose hug. “Hey. It’s okay, it’s gonna be okay. We’ll be back on the castle before you know it.” 

Just like that, the fight bleeds out of him and in response, Shiro melts the rest of the way, giving Keith the weight of his body. Keith’s eyes burn a little bit but he justifies it with saying that the anger has to go somewhere; it’s not like Shiro can see it anyway. Their armor clacks together as they try to figure out a way to both sit comfortably but when it’s done, Keith has his cheek on Shiro’s breastplate and an arm around his waist from behind, supporting him. It’s jarring, to think that Shiro feels small right now; the weight of him is heavy but Keith can carry that. He _will_ carry that, he’ll do anything Shiro needs, and he’ll make sure that above all else, he survives. 

“You’re awfully quiet,” Shiro murmurs after a while and his voice is slow, thick with sleepiness. “What’re you thinking about?” 

“If we don’t get to the Castle soon, it’s gonna scar,” Keith says suddenly, before he can think better of it. For a moment, Shiro goes tense and Keith feels himself go cold in response, fear flooding him. No, that’s not what he meant, he wants to say. He only meant it would be a reminder of Haggar; he doesn’t care about Shiro’s scars. “I don’t mean that’s bad, I just-”

“I’m collecting them,” Shiro says and the tension is revealed to be him gradually trying to shift his weight, stretching out a leg that went numb from having it curled underneath himself. His boot points straight ahead and he rotates it slowly, grimacing. Ever since the arena, his right leg aches more than the other; Keith’s seen it when Shiro doesn’t take care of himself, the angry red swell of his knee. Healing pods couldn’t fix something that didn’t heal right; they’d have to rebreak the bone to set it properly and couldn’t risk that right now and none of them had wanted to suggest it after everything. “Like stamps. Or pennies.” 

“They’re not like _stamps_ and you’re not some retired old Garrison employee who collects that kind of shit,” Keith mutters, scowling into the white sheen of Shiro’s armor. “I just don’t want to be here any longer than we have to be.” 

Shiro’s long exhale ruffles Keith’s hair and sends goosebumps down his spine despite all best efforts to ignore it. “I know. Me either.” A gentle squeeze of Keith’s shoulder. “The company’s not bad, though.” 

No. He supposes the company isn’t bad at all.

**IV.**

In the end, it does scar.

Shiro comes out of the healing pod and his knee catches, locks with the remainder of the freeze. They all see it; the moment that his eyes go wide and he tries to catch himself, still lethargic with the after effects of spending nearly a week in the pod. Keith jolts forward at the same time as Lance and the two of them catch him, Keith on his right, Lance on his left. 

“I’m fine,” Shiro says and behind them there’s a sharp sound of protest, disbelief. “Guys, really, it’s just-” 

“It’s just nothing,” Allura steps in with a blanket, coming behind them to drape it over Shiro’s shoulders while he gets his legs underneath himself and peels away from Keith and Lance. “You gave us all a scare, Shiro; if Keith hadn’t been there--” 

“But he was,” Shiro says firmly, wrapping the blanket around his shoulders, squaring them a moment later. He looks just as large and unshakable as he did before the desert, but it’s one thing to see this now, and another to be staring at him when he’d passed out in the middle of the night, far too close to death and there was _nothing_ Keith could do about it. Not in the middle of nowhere, not with only another set of bandages and barely any rations. “He was and I’m fine, we’re all fine.” 

It’s just a few words but they work like magic; the relief of having Shiro back overrides everything else and for a little while, things go back to normal. Hunk makes a huge meal, Lance and Keith shoulder each other in the hallway with no real intent behind it past settling into old habits. Pidge stays close to all of them, quiet and watchful; one night, Keith hears her talking to Shiro in the room she'd commandeered for herself. _You know that we can’t lose any of you-- especially you, Shiro. Matt and dad are counting on us._

Keith keeps going before he’s caught, but those words stick with him. It’s not just them that are affected if something happens to one of them. There are others depending on them as well; they still have to save Matt and Sam, still have to keep the fledgling Coalition alive, still have to do _everything_ because the galaxy isn’t able to save itself. The enormity of it hits him on his way down the hall; all of this is on _them_. He knew it, of course; hard not to with everything they’ve faced but it’s barely been a few months and Shiro had already been that close to death. They’d nearly lost Lance already, too. 

For a moment, all he can do is stop and stare straight ahead, breathing unsteadily as he tries to focus, to calm down enough to think through next steps, the idea that things are going to be okay so far from his mind that it’s laughable. Instead of _thinking_ , he goes to beat the shit out of some of the training bots. This, he can control. He can work his way up the harder and harder levels and when it becomes too hard, he just keeps practicing until it’s another level he can beat, another task he can accomplish. Maybe, if he becomes good enough here, he’ll be able to do the team some good. 

He’s two hours into the training session when the door opens; he doesn’t have to look to know who it is. “You’re still recovering.” 

“The pod fixed everything it could have,” Shiro counters, like they’re sparring verbally in here instead of with the Gladiator. 

Keith lands the finishing blow against the Gladiator, sending it tumbling to the ground and then dismisses it so he can look over at him. There’s no limp to his gait as he comes closer, but the set of his shoulders isn’t squared and when he’s close enough, Keith realizes that his eyes are red and there are tear-stains on the shoulder of his tshirt. _Pidge,_ he realizes, gut clenching. At least Shiro’s here for her when Keith knows that he doesn’t have any idea how to be. 

“Let me see,” Keith demands the moment he’s dismissed his bayard, pointing to Shiro’s side. It’s not that he doesn’t believe him, exactly, but there’s some suspension of belief with the fact that Haggar’s magic was defeated by ten thousand year old tech. “Shiro.” 

He wouldn’t put it past Shiro to protest or try to avoid it, but thankfully, rather than doing any of that he simply lifts his shirt up to just under his chest, revealing the long lines of Haggar’s work. They’re not glowing and the scarring is thinner than Keith expected it would be. They’re still pink with healing but they’ll soon go shiny and lighten with time like the rest of the scars on Shiro’s body. Before he realizes what he’s doing, he’s reaching out and pressing his fingers to the lines left behind, swallowing harshly against the awful realization that he really could have lost Shiro there. He could have died from that poison, or the aliens, or any other number of things. 

“You were there,” Shiro says like he’s reading Keith’s mind. Keith’s hand isn’t pushed away, but Shiro steps closer and wraps his arms around him like a security blanket, burying his face in Keith’s hair to continue, “You were there, and I’m here, and we’re both okay. The team’s okay. We keep moving forward.” 

“You’re okay,” Keith repeats into Shiro’s chest like a mantra, holding him so tightly it’s a wonder that Shiro doesn’t protest it or try to get away. Of course he wouldn’t, though; when had pain ever stopped him from doing anything if it was for someone else? It feels cowardly to bury his face into Shiro’s chest like this when he feels the press of cool, wet fabric against his cheek and realizes that Pidge likely did the same thing, but he can’t stop himself and Shiro doesn’t push him back. 

His human hand starts carding through Keith’s hair, slow, gentle drags through it despite how sweaty and messy it is and distantly, he’s aware that Shiro’s murmuring nonsense against his temple. _It’s okay, I promise, it’s okay_ , he catches, and hates that Shiro is the one offering comfort when he’s the one that is constantly hurt or in danger. 

“We need you here,” Keith says again, voice harsh. “All of us need you _here_. You understand that, don’t you?” 

Shiro shifts against him and for a moment he worries that he’s being pushed away, eased back because he was throwing too much of a fit. Instead, Shiro’s hands come up and cup Keith’s face and for a moment everything stops. They’re close -- they’re so _close_ and Shiro’s looking at him, smiling soft and warm and -- _no_. He knows he doesn’t imagine the way that Shiro’s eyes drop down to his lips and linger. He doesn’t. 

“Shiro-” Keith murmurs and for a brief second dares to hope despite everything. His chin tilts and he glances from Shiro’s eyes to his lips in return. 

Disappointment is like a punch to the gut from the Gladiator, though. Shiro gathers himself in the span of time it seems to take for him to think better of things and dips down to press a kiss to Keith’s sweaty forehead, thumbs drawing over his cheekbones as he draws back. “I’m not going anywhere, Keith.” 

_Coward_ , Keith thinks viciously, staring at Shiro with all the anger and disappointment in the world before he manages to swallow it down.

A few weeks later, standing in Black’s cockpit looking at an empty seat, he thinks: _you promised_.

**A.**

Is it always going to be like this, Keith wonders, staring at the sight of him in the cryopod: long hair, gaunt features, that awful Galra prisoner uniform tossed into the trash and burned. He’s clearly malnourished, the circles under his eyes are like bruises and it’s been twice as long as the pod initially predicted and he’s still not out. Is being a paladin, leading the team just going to be like this, forever? Losing Shiro and getting him back again, losing him and getting him back until the next time? A cycle that he’s never going to be strong enough to break?

He hopes not, but hope hasn’t done a whole hell of a lot of good lately so instead he throws himself into training. Sometimes Lance joins to practice with him, or to heckle with no real enthusiasm behind it. Despite the bickering back and forth, Lance always comes with extra leftovers from missed meals and two pouches of water for when he’s done training. 

When Shiro wakes up, they all gather around him and swarm him with hugs and affection so strong that he looks overwhelmed at it. He’s still tired which is why his responses are so...off, Keith reasons, so eventually he cuts in to let them get him to bed to rest first and foremost. From there, he makes sure the rest of the team is seen to as best as he can and only when that’s done does he come back and linger in Shiro’s room. Seeing him in a tanktop is jarring, but having him home again overrides anything past a momentary consideration that this is the first time he’s seen Shiro’s arms bared like this without him looking uncomfortable about it. He must really be exhausted, which means he needs to let Shiro gets some rest.

 _As many times as it takes_ , he promises when he leaves, not saying that he hopes it never happens again because he’s not sure _he_ can take it, let alone the rest of the team. He’s not meant for leadership; that’s Shiro’s role and he can only try and fill his boots the best that he can for small periods of time. When Shiro comes back out onto the bridge, hair changed, clothing similar enough but still _different_ , Keith stares a little longer than is necessary but focuses on what’s important: the mission, now that they have him back.

Weeks pass and things go back to some semblance of normal, he supposes. Lotor is still ten steps ahead of them and if he’s not the reason, Allura’s not the reason and somehow, _Black’s_ not the reason, then they’re at a loss. Maybe, Keith supposes, maybe Lotor’s just that good. He’s been doing this longer than they have, no doubt, and they’re all still too new at this to be any sort of reliable. Worse: with Black not letting Shiro in for some reason and Keith _knowing_ he’s making shit decisions any time but in the moment he’s making them, he’s not sure how long this can go on for. 

He can’t go to Shiro with this, either. Things are oddly strained between them but it only encourages him to try and bridge any gap there might be, patching it up with whatever he has at his disposal. _Try to get things back to normal_ , he suggests, and for a bit, it sort of does. They do movie nights together. They eat group meals. They form Voltron, and fight the Galra. When Keith and Allura realize that they haven’t seen Shiro do his knee exercises with her, they corner him and start that back up again, too. It’s a form of meditation as well as stretching and while Shiro’s extremely out of practice, he picks it back up easily enough by watching her. 

Shiro moves through each set of stances slowly, eyes closed as he focuses on whatever he’s thinking about while he does it. Next to him, Allura moves through the same, quietly giving direction. Keith doesn’t have the patience for it but they’re beautiful to watch and both Shiro and Allura are terribly graceful so the particularly difficult ones are impressive. It’s a whole bunch of spinning, kicking and moving in long, slow stretches that make all the muscles play under their skin in a way that he almost feels guilty about appreciating. 

When they finish, Keith’s done with his own stretching, almost smiling despite himself when both of them come closer. It’s easier to smile now, with Shiro back. Things will get back to normal, things won’t feel so...strained, so weird, and maybe he’ll get a smile out of Shiro himself. 

“Your knee seems to be doing much better,” Allura comments, resting a hand on his shoulder, squeezing. There’s something odd in her tone, though; Keith’s known her for long enough to recognize it but Shiro doesn’t seem jarred so he doesn’t bother wondering much more than that. 

“I guess the Galra needed me in better shape than they got me in,” Shiro offers, tone wry and a little sheepish, rubbing the back of his neck. “Only good thing to come out of it.” 

“Mmm.” There’s...definitely something there, though. Allura sweeps her eyes over him in a way that with anyone else, would make Keith think that she was checking him out. Instead, it’s more an appraisal, the same look he’s seen her give someone three times her size and weight before she thrashed them. Whatever she seems to want to say, though, she doesn’t. “Hunk’s prepared something special for dinner, I’ve heard.”

“We’ll see you for dinner,” Shiro agrees and reaches a hand out to pull Keith to his feet with one firm tug. Without his gloves on, their hands slip a little bit, slick with sweat and Shiro’s fingers drag over the scar on Keith’s hand. Allura waves at them as she exits and then Shiro glances down again, frowning. “Ow. That looks like it hurt. Was it while I was gone?” 

It takes a moment to register what he means but then Keith once Shiro drags his thumb over it like a worry stone. The scar on his hand, usually covered by his gloves. “I had it way before I met you. A knife, remember?” He’s pretty sure they’ve talked about this, but it was long enough ago that he can’t quite recall. 

“Guess I’m just not used to seeing you with the gloves off,” Shiro says wryly, nodding to the door. “Come on, let’s change and go get dinner with everyone else.” 

He’s sure he told Shiro that story.


	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith isn't sure it's actually Shiro who came back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAA ok here it is. I'd say 'ambiguous ending' except the fic before this obviously explains how things went so there's no real ambiguity. ANYWAY YEAH here take it. :)

**B.**

“The new outfit looks good, sure,” Lance says, stabbing his fork into the space salad. Instead of green, it was a soft blue with pink veins, but tasted like a salad and had the same consistency, so it worked. Everyone else save Shiro and the Alteans were killing time while Hunk finished dinner, lounging in the kitchen. “But bare arms? Did he not have a way for the castle to make his old outfit or did he just stop caring?” 

Keith glances up from where he was reviewing placement of Blade members on planets newly in the Coalition, frowning. He hadn’t seen Shiro’s arms from when he rescued him from the Garrison, all the way until they’d gotten him back the second time. Til now. He’d just assumed it was because he was tired of his old outfit and haircut and decided some change was needed. 

“It’s not that weird, is it?” Pidge asks, elbow deep in the robotics of something she was building. 

“Uh, he looked like he was afraid to get a space sunburn, before; I didn’t know you could wear long sleeves to the pool, but that’s what he did. S’just weird.” Another stab into the salad and Keith has a feeling he doesn’t like where this is going. “I mean - I. Well, I’m not the only one who noticed it, right?”

The silence is answer enough; Keith knows it by the way both Pidge and Hunk look away, clearly not wanting to touch the subject. He should stop it, but there’s something --

“Okay, come on. Someone say something, I know I’m not - I know he came back from Kerberos, the Galra a little different, but this is differenter than the original different.” Lance’s fork jerks with the motion of his hand, salad flicked off of it. Hunk doesn’t even bother complaining this time, he just scoops it up with a napkin. “Guys.” 

“Okay, yes, sure, yes, it’s a little weird, but -- he’s been through a lot,” Hunk breathes out in a rush, casting Keith a nervous look. “I’m sorry, Keith, but if anyone here has seen it, you had to have. You know him better than any of us.” 

Before Keith can say anything, the doors hiss open and all of them straighten, stiffen as Shiro walks in, smiling at something Coran is saying. Behind them, Allura’s smile is more reserved, her eyes lingering on Shiro a moment before she clasps her hands together and asks Hunk what he’s making. 

“A _very_ special dinner, in fact,” Hunk says with all the dramatic tone he can muster. “A few people here mentioned they missed a place we all knew back in the Garrison cooked by a wonderful woman you may recall as Mama of Mama’s Burgers and Fries.” 

Instantly, Lance, Pidge and Keith are paying attention. There was a restaurant back by the Garrison - just close enough that you could get a meal there and come back before curfew which was great during exams and when students just wanted anything besides messhall food. It was run by a woman who had a son that just graduated from the Garrison; he’d gone off site for work. She’d gotten used to all the times his friends piled into the restaurant to study and eat, though, so during all the difficult times of school there were free appetizers or desserts offered to all the Garrison students. Unofficially, she told them, she’d adopted all of them, hence the name. 

“I _thought_ it smelled familiar, are you _serious_.” Earlier hesitation nowhere to be seen, Lance forgets his salad and goes to try and snipe one of whatever Hunk is working on, only to get his fingers smacked back. “Man, if I woulda known I wouldn’t have eaten most of that salad before dinner. Also, mean.” 

“Go set the table if you’re not gonna finish your salad, Mr. Oh No, I’m Starving Before Dinner,” Hunk orders, but Keith sees him sneak Lance a bite anyway. The kitchen erupts into flurry for a moment while everyone grabs something to help and bring it out to the dining room. Shiro’s handed a plate of what look like the space equivalent of french fries, if they were pale pink. 

Lance finishes setting the table and blows out a breath like he wants to say something, but thinks better of it. Once he settles at his seat, Keith watches him fiddle with his napkin, his plate, twisting and turning them while he waited for everyone else to start settling. Then, his head lifts and he stares at Shiro. “Hey, you know Mama Kim asked about you and Matt a ton, right?” 

The question doesn’t get an instant response from Shiro until Pidge reaches out and touches his arm to let him know they’re addressing him. “What? Oh. I’m sorry. She did?” There’s a question in his tone but Keith isn’t sure whether it’s about if he needs it repeated, or if he doesn’t understand. 

“Yeah,” Pidge says after a beat and Keith really, really hates where this is going. It’s like watching a trainwreck in slow motion but if he jumps in, it’s going to make it even worse and it’s -- 

No. It’s not nothing. If he thought it were nothing he wouldn’t be hesitating like this, wouldn’t be watching Shiro so hard, not sure why his gut tells him something’s wrong. But it’s still _Shiro_. “Guys--” 

“--All the time. She said I looked like him, first time I went in there. She kept the news article about Dad, Matt and you pinned on her corkboard for forever.”

Keith’s not close enough to reach out and touch Pidge, to comfort her with a hand on her shoulder the way Shiro does, but it kicks him in the chest all the same. Pidge’s brother was still out there and Shiro was back again. Keith can’t imagine how awful it feels to lose a brother and a father after how it felt losing Shiro. “She said that when you guys come back, she’d make you guys all the food you wanted.” 

Then, they hadn’t come back. _Pilot Error Results in Failure For Kerberos Mission_ was the title of the article she kept pinned to her corkboard of the successes of the Garrison kids who ate there. Rather than that or the meat of the article, she’d cut out the picture in it - Shiro, Matt and Sam all smiling in their uniforms with their names underneath. It’d always killed Keith, just a little, seeing it there. He couldn’t eat there for a month not wanting to risk the questions or the sight of it hanging there with all the other Garrison student accomplishments. 

“Well, they certainly smell good,” Allura says before Keith can snap anything out or stop them from whatever it is they’re doing. He shoots her a grateful look and reaches across to snag one of the fries while the others start to pass burger fixings around. “So all of you ate there?” 

“Yeah. Friday nights, exams,” Lance sighs dramatically and grabs for what’s probably meant to be an space bacon and crunches into it. Once, when they’d all been craving real bacon, Coran had pointed out that _technically_ , wasn’t Kaltenecker the animal that food was made out of? The explosion of yelling and protests had shut down that line of thought quickly enough; now, they used something from one of the new planets in the Coalition. “She was the best, especially when you got sick of whatever stuff they were thawing out in the mess hall.” 

From beside him, Hunk makes an aggrieved, offended noise. 

Thankfully, dinner passes without any further issue and when they’re wrapping up, cleaning the table, Pidge offers her plate to Shiro. “Here, you only took a few and Keith mentioned they were your favorite.” 

Just like that, it feels like all the air goes out in the room. He’d -- he’d tried not to watch, tried not to doubt but when he wanted to make a joke out of it he realized that the few fries Shiro grabbed were still on his plate while he was finishing his burger. _It’s nothing_ , he’d thought but now - 

“Oh. Thanks, unless anyone else wants them?” Shiro asks and when no one offers, plucks it off of her plate. He tosses it back in a bite. There’s nothing. No reaction, no gratefulness, no mention of how much he’s missed them or how good they were or anything besides accepting it. No one else seems to notice but him and Hunk, but it was too deliberate to be anything but a test. For a moment, the fury swells -- they just got him back, they need to keep him, he’s fine. Just be _easy_ on him for once, hasn’t he dealt with enough? Then, Shiro piles his plates in the sink and takes the next set of dishes with a smile. He’s not going to ruin things right now by pulling Shiro aside and reminding him of the mess everything was; not when he’s smiling like that. Later-- he’ll do it later. 

Right now, though, he slides past Pidge and Hunk at the fridge, voice low, sharp. “No more.” 

He has no idea if they’ll listen to him, not with Shiro back, but he has to try. Shiro’s just finishing the dishes when Keith comes over, wanting to ask a question but not even sure where to begin asking without making things worse. Before he can think of anything, Shiro hands him a wet dish to dry off. 

“Were those really my favorite thing?” Shiro asks, quiet enough no one else can hear. 

To hear the question asked from Shiro, rather than to have Keith struggle with how to ask if Shiro remembered her, jars him. “What?” 

“Those fries,” Shiro passes him another plate, face unreadable. “I remember the burger place, I remember her son was a year ahead of me, but I don’t remember preferring these over anything else out there.” 

“Maybe your head’s still scrambled,” Keith offers before he can stop himself, rushing the towel over the plate, knocking the next one onto it a little too hard and loud. Shiro gives him a look but Keith reaches for the next plate and stares at that instead of Shiro while he dries it. “You said you were missing parts and pieces - it’s probably that, right?” 

Grasping for straws, he’s grasping for straws but Shiro frowns and nods, and the matter is dropped.

**C.**

The idea of sparring used to be something Keith looked forward to. He liked trying to push his body to its limits, liked finding out where those limits were and sometimes, where possible, surpassing them. He even liked getting that ache in his bones where he knew he’d pushed a little too hard and would need to take a bath after to give himself a break; it meant he’d done _something_ worth doing. It used to drive Shiro crazy, back in the Garrison. 

_I’m supposed to be mentoring you, not peeling you off the ground_ , Shiro would sigh and then dutifully peel him up off the ground despite his reluctance to enable Keith’s slightly self-destructive behavior. 

Now, he does it because he needs to. Shiro can’t pilot one of the lions- even Black knows that there’s something off, something wrong which means that it falls to Keith to lead even though they’ve gotten him back. It’s like a knife to the back, to have Shiro so close, to have him there and yet _not_. Black won’t take him, everyone else keeps watching, expecting Keith to guide them where Shiro doesn’t any longer and Keith wants everything to go back to normal but knows it can’t. Does Shiro know? Does he realize that something’s off? 

That’s another question he’s not sure he actually wants answered. It’s easier to pretend that things are okay, they’re normal, if he doesn’t think about whether or not Shiro knows that there’s something wrong with him. Instead of focusing too long or hard on it, he turns to what he can do - throwing himself against the physical limits of his body, testing himself against Shiro. 

It’s strange. Back in the Garrison, he used to win fights because he’d play dirty. The first time he did it, he’d grinned down at Shiro through bloody teeth and told him _no one actually fights by the rules in a real fight, so I won_. Shiro, nursing a bloody nose and with his arm pinned down behind his back, had turned around and given him a dubious look but agreed. 

After they got Shiro back from the Galra the first time, Keith couldn’t _touch_ him. Shiro’d gained a few inches in pure muscle while seemingly still looking as if he needed a good meal to steady him. Every time they sparred, Shiro thrashed him so thoroughly that Keith couldn’t help but be impressed and slightly horrified - Shiro had always been good, but never like this. Never with this sort of quiet intensity, striking all of Keith’s weak spots, taking him down with deadly efficiency every single time. He cheated, as he would have put it back in the Garrison. When Keith pointed it out - after Shiro had used a move that Keith taught him years ago, only useful in a backalley scuffle - Shiro had smiled quietly and told him that the move saved his life, once. Keith could land a few hits, maybe, but ultimately Shiro was on another level altogether and Allura was one of the only ones who stood a chance. 

Getting him back the second time, Keith prepares for the inevitable act of Shiro thrashing him solidly. They square off against each other rather than the Gladiator and there’s the briefest pause before Keith lunges. 

Where Keith expects that he’ll wind up on the ground instantly, he lasts four minutes before being taken down, panting. The second time, he watches, waits, and strikes; Shiro takes a knee to the gut and groans, but wins again, slamming Keith’s wrists to the mats. The third, fourth and fifth times go much the same, but each time, Keith learns something about how his fighting style has changed until it clicks. It’s -- routine. They’re not fighting dirty against each other, they’re fighting like they’re sparring back at the Garrison. 

So, he changes tack. He knees between Shiro’s legs when he gets close enough and throws himself into the solid bulk of him, turning it into less of a sparring match and more a mad scuffle on the ground. At one point, he bites, and hears Shiro hiss a confused _what the hell_. It ends with Keith pinning him squarely, panting as he stares down at Shiro, both of them shocked.

“I yield,” Shiro wheezes, Keith’s forearm against his throat, every inch of him pinned firmly to the ground or himself in some way with Keith’s weight looming over him. It’s not the first time Keith’s won with weapons and hand to hand but it doesn’t happen often at all - in Keith’s mind, it shouldn’t have happened at all. He’s getting better, sure, but Shiro’s always been the best and this felt wrong. All of this -- _all of it_ feels wrong. He fought well enough, sure and from the way Shiro’s smiling at him, he’s probably about to hear about it but it’s not _right_. “Good job, Keith.” 

He did, and that’s the problem. They start again, again, again, and Keith uses every dirty trick that he knows to win. There’s the slowly growing realization that if he re-examines this fight and tries to place where he learned the moves in the timeline of his life, he knows where the successful ones and unsuccessful ones would fall. 

The successful ones would have been learned during Shiro’s failed mission and imprisonment by the Galra, where Keith got into fight after fight. The unsuccessful ones were taught by Shiro himself, or done in the spaces between. The realization is nauseating in a way that Keith doesn’t fully understand how to unpack right now so he keeps the knowledge boxed up for later, refusing to address it right now. _Coward._ It’s no better or worse than the last time he’d thought it, but this time it’s directed at himself.

Keith’s only won three out of the eight times they’ve gone against each other, but he’s held his own every single time. He might not have given Shiro as intense of a run for his money, but he’d made him work for it most of the time. It results in Keith panting quietly as he rolls off and swipes sweaty bangs out of his eyes, watching Shiro carefully. Where he’s flagging, Shiro has only stayed the same. At most he’d broken out in a light sweat. It could be a holdover from the Arena training - he’d been forced to go so long and so hard that he was used to it and just had better stamina than Keith. It was entirely plausible. If Keith tried, he thinks he could believe that as an excuse and sleep okay at night. 

The problem is, he won’t try. There’s something wrong. 

“Just lucky, I guess,” Keith mutters after a moment of staring a little too long and hard. He rolls to his feet gingerly, and reaches down a hand to offer to Shiro, tugging him up too. The low, acknowledging noise that Shiro gives him isn’t dismissive, but it’s clear that neither of them think it’s luck. 

The walk to the shower feels like it takes forever, Keith caught up in his own head, the hair on his arms, the nape of his neck sticking up. It feels like a warning. It feels wrong - all of this feels wrong and he knows it but it’s Shiro. He’s been drawn to Shiro for the longest time, a planet orbiting a sun, and if he happens to get pulled in and destroyed, well. Isn’t that some sort of fitting? 

Halfway there, Lance calls them. They’re setting up a move in the lounge and both of them are obviously invited. Keith casts Shiro a curious look and Shiro shrugs in response. 

“Yeah, we’ll be there. I’m just gonna shower,” Keith answers into the comms, listening to the shuffle of them rearranging things in the common room. 

“Get clean, smelly,” Lance agrees with all the glee of a mocking little brother. “See you in twenty. Shiro, you too!” 

He does, in fact, smell. At least he thinks he does; when he gets to the shower stalls and starts stripping down while the water heats up, he grimaces as he smells the scent of his own sweat. Beside him, Shiro is stripping down, slower, frowning at his clothes. There’s the start of pit sweat showing on his shirt, maybe a little bit on his chest, dotting faintly. 

“Shiro?” Keith ventures, clad in only his boxers, testing the temperature of the shower. The Garrison rid him of all shame long ago, but Shiro’s always opted to change and shower separate from them on most occasions. That he’s stripped off his shirt so easily and has toed off his shoes makes Keith pause. 

He heads for the shower cubicle and Shiro follows, despite Shiro probably not even sweating enough to merit the rinse off and then Keith realizes that there just...isn’t any scarring. Truth be told, he’d wondered about Shiro’s aversion to showing skin but hadn’t ever dared to press on that subject because Shiro’s always kept things for himself. He’d share anything with Keith that he asked, and that was the problem; Keith had to learn how to let Shiro have things he shared on his own, no prompting or questions required. 

“Shiro?” Again, since the first question hadn't gotten a reaction; it was like Shiro hadn't even heard him. Keith can’t stop himself, not quite sure what to expect here. When there’s no answer again, he comes closer, touches his hand to the curve of Shiro’s shoulder - underneath his hand is an expanse of smooth skin until the line of his tank top. 

“It’s nothing, I just expected to be a little more worn out after all that.” Shiro says finally, snapping out of whatever haze he was in. He folds the shirt neatly and sets it on top of his pants, stripping out of his tanktop in one smooth motion. Underneath, there’s nothing. All of the scars Keith knew to look for were gone; it was a slate wiped clean, like the Galra or the cryopod had somehow smoothed all of it out and left him whole again. It looks -- it’s wrong. “I’m fine.” 

He is. That’s the problem. Keith backs away and heads for the shower, mind working furiously. It’s possible the Galra did this to him; they fixed him so he’d be in peak shape to use again. It’s possible just like everything else is possible, but it’s not _plausible._ How would all of that have healed so clean when the stump of his arm - normally a sensitive thing for anyone to see, even Keith - was still scarred. Would they have healed that too, and then removed it all over again? The idea makes his stomach twist, flipping uncomfortably. Beside him, Shiro heads for the other shower stall and turns on the spray without waiting for it to warm.

It’s a blast of cold every single time they start the showers because of the old Altean heating system; Shiro barely reacts, lifting a hand into it, frowning. Keith looks away before he’s caught, but it’s damning enough as it is. He’s acting like he can’t even feel it. After how he reacted to some of those strikes Keith landed, he wonders if Shiro does feel much at all. It’s possible the Gala did this to him; that in healing him, they erased more of his memory. It wouldn’t take much to imagine them being stronger, able to heal things better than ten thousand year old tech. The behavior could be explained by memory gaps. 

It’s all able to be explained. _Shouldn’t that be a relief?_

They finish their showers and Shiro dumps his clothing down the chute along with Keith’s, both of them dressing in near silence until Shiro stares at himself a little harder in the mirror and touches where his jawline is starting to get rough with hair again. It’s not much - Shiro’d never been able to grow much of a beard or anything else but it is dark and it’s noticeable. 

“Do you think I should have kept it?” he asks Keith, picking up the razor at his sink to start taking care of it, some sort of Altean shaving cream poured into his hand, lathered up. “The -- this, I mean.” 

“Did you want to?” Keith touches fingers over his own jaw, but there’s nothing there worth trying to tend to. He’d shaved his pubes, once, mostly just because he’d been curious and had a partner who suggested it. The resulting itching had been enough to make him grateful that he’d never need to shave much of anything ever again. “It’s...a change.” 

“Yeah,” Shiro agrees. His human hand spreads some of the lather on his cheek, working it in circles over his face while Keith watches, the motion somehow soothing to watch. “To go with the outfit, maybe. Change never killed anyone, right?” 

The words are too deliberate to be anything but intentional, Shiro slowly dragging the razor over his skin in slow, steady movements, eyes focused on his work. _Change never killed anyone_ might be the greatest lie he’s ever told. 

“New outfit. New hair. If you kept it, it’s--” _Almost like you’re a different person_. How does he even finish that sentence? They’re apparently going to have this talk here and now, while Shiro’s shaving and Keith’s hair is still wet from his shower. It’s not the best time but then again, no time really is. “Are you trying to reinvent yourself?” 

Shiro’s eyes cut up from where they’re focused on his chin in the mirror, and instead meet Keith’s eyes through the reflection. “I don’t know. Would that be easier?” 

He knows. He has to; the phrasing is too careful and Shiro’s face is too blank to be anything but intentional. 

Easier than being the real Shiro? Easier than this awful sense of wrongness that is starting to creep through every single moment of every single day? Easier than the sense that everything that they’re dealing with lately isn’t _right_ until Keith feels like he’s going insane with it? No, none of this is going to be easy and there’s not much meaning to the word _easier_ either. Something’s wrong, and Keith -- he knows it. Shiro knows it. They’re both doing a rather spectacular job at not acknowledging it past circular words and half-questions but it’s there, laid out between them. 

One or two could be a coincidence. Three or more is a pattern. Shiro taught him that. This is a pattern. The obvious conclusion that the pattern leads to is one that Keith can’t stomach right now. They’ve only just gotten Shiro back. Accepting that it’s not him - it’s him, but not, that the real Shiro might be out there somewhere and they haven’t the faintest idea, that’s too much. He doesn’t know how to begin searching for him and they have all the planets of the coalition to worry about. Lotor’s outmaneuvered them every step of the way, able to predict their actions. Haggar, similarly. They’ve been fighting to keep scraps the last few weeks since getting Shiro back and everything is neatly slotting into place, making Keith’s skin crawl. 

_If you’re not him then who are you_? Keith wonders, watching Shiro finish shaving, missing a strip of his jaw where the shaving cream sits. Slowly, he rises up and nudges Shiro to sit down on the stool in the bathroom so his back is resting against the wall, taking the razor from him. There’s no need for the mirror; he can handle this part. He might not need to shave his own face but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t understand how it works. One hand settles at Shiro’s jaw while the other holds sharp metal to his neck. Shiro doesn’t flinch; he looks up at Keith and trusts. Keith wonders if it’d be better if he didn’t. 

“I don’t think you should be a part of the planning sessions for a few weeks,” Keith says quietly, dragging the razor over flesh with a dull rasping sound. “You only just got back and you’re working yourself harder than you need to.” 

Shiro’s always worked himself harder than he needs to. It’s not a stretch to say this, but Keith’s testing the limits of just how much of Shiro’s in there. If he agrees to this (he has to, _he has to_ he’s just as aware of what’s going on as Keith is, isn’t he?) then they can continue forward. If he doesn’t, then Keith has to figure out where to go from there. 

Shiro, to his credit, only raises his eyes up and meets Keith’s from where he’d been staring at a fixed point past Keith’s shoulder. His voice might be even, but underneath the razor, his throat bobs with a harsh swallow. “I’ve been... tired lately, but I still want to help. Just...keep me updated on how things go, okay?” 

The relief that hits is better than anything else Keith’s felt in a long time, followed quickly by the realization that they’re both in agreement. Something’s wrong, they both _know_ something’s wrong with Shiro and now they have to try and fix it. Gently, he tilts Shiro’s head and runs his knuckles over the line of his jaw, feeling out any spots that were missed and gently drags the razor over those. 

“Glad we’re on the same page,” Keith murmurs, and finishes up. He steps back long enough to run a towel under hot water, bringing it back to start wiping up the streaks of cream and leftover bits of hair that escaped the razor. “Chin up.” 

Shiro obeys, closing his eyes for the first time in a while, breathing steadily through his nose while Keith cleans up the shaving cream. When he can talk again, he hesitates openly, touching a hand to Keith’s waist, his legs spreading to let Keith stand in a little closer between the spread of his knees. Once, Keith would have been thrilled. He’s spent so much time _wanting_ that the idea of being able to _have_ always seemed like an impossibility. Now, faced with the invitation, he knows that it’s not the same. There’s something wrong, and both of them know it, they just don’t know the exact details of what it is. 

“You can handle the team,” Shiro says quietly, letting Keith wipe the towel over the line of his jaw, his hand heavy and warm over the narrow line of Keith’s hip. When his thumb starts smoothing little circles, Keith jerks, but doesn’t pull away. “What if I said I thought I needed to take a trip to find myself? That the things I’m remembering are… _Keith_ , I don’t know.”

His knee-jerk reaction is to protest. He’s lost Shiro so many times that eventually his luck has to run out; one of these times he’s going to lose Shiro for good. No one’s luck stays good for that long. (Then again, maybe he’s already lost him for good and just doesn’t know it. Keith doesn’t want to consider that option. 

“I think twenty-five is a little early for a midlife crisis,” Keith answers, finishing up. The towel gets balled up and tossed into the chute with perfect precision. Shiro’s eyes stay closed, but his lips twitch up at the sound of it hitting solidly. More importantly: “Are you going to come back?” 

Shiro’s eyes remain closed and Keith hates that he understands why. There’s finally too much for them to keep ignoring and the possibility of Shiro -- this Shiro being the leak is-- well. There’s nothing else here for Haggar to use against them, is there? If they look at Shiro -- really look at him and consider the possibility that it’s him, then it makes sense.

“I don’t know,” Shiro breathes, and Keith hates himself a little bit for the way he steps into Shiro a few inches more, until they’re pressed up against each other too firmly for it to be anything other than intentional. Shiro’s Galra hand remains on his thigh, just the fingertips brushing Keith’s but his human hand splays out at the small of Keith’s back. There’s a long pause, Shiro clearly weighing his words before he pushes forward. “I won’t dance around this anymore, Keith. I don’t think I’m -- there’s something wrong with me. I don’t know if I’m really...who you remember. I’m going to make sure he comes back, if I’m not - if I’m right.” 

Hearing it said out loud aches worse than Keith expects. He makes a soft, hurt little noise in the back of his throat and fights against the burn ins his eyes as he leans down and presses their foreheads together, noses touching. He was never allowed this with the other Shiro; he never let himself get this far, never let himself acknowledge it despite it being a tangible thing at points. He was a different sort of coward then - if he never made the offer or pursued Shiro, he could never say no and Keith would never be disappointed. 

“When?” Keith asks, lifting his hands to tangle in Shiro’s hair. It’s too long. He can bury his fingers in it when he should just be able to skim his fingertips across a buzzcut that’s all military precision. “I just got you back.” 

“Neither of us know if you did, not really,” Shiro’s-- or whatever the closest approximation of him is- voice is quiet but certain. “I don’t know if I am or not. I need to find out. The team needs you here and Black won’t take me like this. She knows something’s wrong, too. This is the best option. Keith, let me do this for you.” 

It’s not an answer but it is at the same time. Keith breathes in deep, furious all of the sudden. Fury is easier than the fear at the idea of losing Shiro again, fury is safe, fury is comfortable. In his head, Red stretches out like the giant cat she is and her power licks along their connection, briefly bleeding over the one he has with Black. Distantly, he wonders if Shiro can feel it, or if the connection between him and his lion is gone, because he’s not--

“Are you going to tell the others?” he asks, instead of the letting out the anger that wants to bubble up and spill over. _Would you have told me if I didn’t start this conversation?_ he wants to ask, but isn’t brave enough for that answer.

“I’ll be gone in the morning. I can leave them a message.” Once it’s said out loud, it can’t be taken back. They have what’s probably about fourteen hours til morning. Fourteen hours until Keith loses the closest thing he’s had to Shiro again all for the hope that either this Shiro finds out what happened to him, or brings the real one back. The not knowing is the worst part. Fourteen hours. “Hey. It’s going to be okay.” 

“Every time you’ve said that in the last few years, it hasn’t been,” Keith says before he can stop himself. It feels petty, like he’s attacking Shiro for something outside of his control, spoiling for a fight without even knowing what he hopes to get out of it. It’s not Shiro’s fault - and if this isn’t Shiro, it’s even less his fault than anyone else’s. “You seem like him, sometimes. That’s the worst part. What if you’re--” 

“I feel like him, most of the time,” Shiro answers and his hands slide up from where they’re cupping Keith’s hips to graze against his belly, the contact jarring enough that Keith inhales raggedly, almost a gasp. “I think I want all the same things he wanted. I remember...everything, I think, that he remembers. But it’s different. Fuzzier. He...wanted this, whatever this would end up being, but I-- he was scared.” 

There’s a pause between them where the air seems too charged, waiting on one of them to act. It’s an invitation, Keith knows it is. It’s confirmation that all those touches, those long looks, those moments together weren’t just his imagination, weren’t just two friends who were really comfortable in each other’s space. No, this is confirmation that it wasn’t imagined, that it was returned, even if a nasty little voice inside his head says if the Galra created him, maybe they twisted that, too. False hope, trying to break the team apart. It seems honest, though. The way Shiro-not-Shiro is looking up at him, soft and tired but earnest seems...real. He feels real. He seems like he’s telling the truth. That alone is worth a great deal but having someone who looks like Shiro, who has most of his memories right in front of him and is giving him the _choice_? 

If he’s not really Shiro then it...isn’t as if he’ll ever know, would he? If the real Shiro wanted him but refused to act on it out of fear, or because he thought it was his duty not to, then it wasn’t like he would after coming back _again_. And, his mind points out nastily, if it is Shiro then they’re both getting what they want; if it’s not and this is...all that’s left, then that’s something else altogether. 

Except -- Shiro’s still out there. Keith has to believe that; no one else might all over again, but he has to. He’s got to keep fighting and keep moving forward until he gets _his_ Shiro back. 

“You look like you just decided something,” Shiro murmurs, lifting his Galra hand up to stroke over Keith’s jaw this time, with none of the worry that he used to have in touching Keith with it. From the way Keith flinches and Shiro looks _resigned_ , it’s just another nail in the coffin. “He’d know not to do that. He’d know about his favorite french fries, about how to really lead the team. He’d have the scars you keep looking for, or know what yours are from. I remember…enough. Bits and pieces. I think -- I feel like him, I guess. A pretty good imitation. I don’t know how to explain it.”

Keith doesn’t know how to explain it, either. It’s Shiro, but it’s not. He looks similar enough to him that despite the haircut and different outfit, if Keith looks at him, it’s easy enough to pretend that it’s really him and he just decided that he needed a change. Slowly, gingerly, he lifts his hand and traces the line where he’d shaved Shiro’s jaw earlier and strokes along newly smooth skin, running along the the line of it and then traces up to his ear, framing his face with one hand. He’s wanted this for so long that it’s jarring to have the ability to go for it now even if it’s not...real. If Shiro’s not Shiro. Slowly, he bends down again and touches their noses together, feels Shiro tilt his head up and graze their lips against each other when Keith takes too long for it. 

It’s just a kiss - a dry slide of lips against lips that’s almost chaste, innocent if not for the fact that as soon as he lingers for a moment, he’s pushing Shiro back against the wall and kissing him harder. He’s only kissed a few people in his life, one of them in school, a few of them in the Garrison. He’s traded lazy handjobs in a common room before and it’d been...fine, but it wasn’t anything like this. He’s angry -- angry that he gets this but doesn’t really, angry that this Shiro is a person even if he’s not _Shiro_ and his mind won’t let him forget it. Angry that this feels like a betrayal, even if in the most fucked up of ways, it’s really not.

Would the real Shiro kiss him like this, if he ever did let Keith kiss him? In most of the times he’d imagined it, it was softer; they’d come back from a mission and Shrio’d let himself get pushed against the wall while Keith kissed him until their lips were tingling. Maybe they’d move onto other things, or maybe they’d just stay in bed together and cuddle instead of being back to back when they shared a bed together. Keith didn’t have those soft kinds of thoughts often, but when he did, he wanted so badly it was almost a physical ache in his bones.

The answer doesn’t matter; this Shiro parts his lips under the kiss and their teeth clack together. Instead of apologizing, Keith draws back for a breath and shoves Shiro’s shoulders back against the wall again when he tries to follow. Only when he’s sure Shiro’s going to stay does he clamber into his lap and start kissing him again, softening it only when Shiro’s hands skim down his back and cup his ass, dragging him the last few inches forward until they can roll their hips together. It feels good - it’s impossible for it to _not_ feel good, but that’s it. It’s just...good. Shiro’s starting to get hard in his sweats and Keith feels that, the fattening swell of his cock underneath thin material but his own stays soft. 

“Keith,” Shiro breathes and squeezes his ass, rolling his hips up again, noticing the problem a moment later. When Keith goes in to kiss him, Shiro ducks it, lets it land on his cheek and instead presses a line of kisses down Keith’s jaw, over his throat to linger at his pulse. Instead of being inviting, or seductive, it’s sweet. If anything, it feels like it’s winding down; the hands on his ass migrate to Keith’s thighs instead and smooth back and forth over them. Keith ducks his head to bite a mark against Shiro’s throat and shoves a hand between them to cup his dick through his sweats, shivering. “Hey. Hey, slow down.” 

He doesn’t _want_ to slow down; he wants this, he wants _Shiro_ if this is the only chance he ever gets to have him and -- well, that’s the problem. The realization feels like a ton of weights hung on his shoulders all over again; this isn’t Shiro and pretending that it is isn’t going to help bring him back. He’s angry all over again; angry at himself, angry at Shiro, angry at this thing wearing his face that he wants so badly to _be him_. 

_He’s not a thing_ , is the worst part. If the Galra copied him somehow- an imperfect copy, but one close enough that he lasted this long with _him_ , with the rest of them, didn’t that mean that he wasn’t real. It’s not him, though. He doesn’t touch Keith the same; he’s not even sure how he knows that, but it doesn’t _feel_ right, and almost simultaneously, Keith slides back and Shiro reclines against the wall rather than being shoved. 

“I can’t,” Keith chokes out, suddenly disgusted with himself. “I miss-- you, I miss him, I don’t _know_.”

“It’s okay,” Shiro lies again. It’s not okay; none of this is anything approaching okay. Keith hides his face in Shiro’s shoulder and shudders through what threatens to be a furious sob. It’d be easier if this Shiro didn’t smell the same, didn’t have the same mannerisms, didn’t stroke a hand over his back and him close and whisper that _it’s okay, Keith. It’s gonna be okay_. He’s always trusted Shiro, always followed wherever he led because he was that sort of person. The kind where people were drawn into his orbit, to the brightness of him, planets to a star. “I’m so sorry.” 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Keith’s voice cracks halfway through the word and he digs his fingers into the meat of Shiro’s shoulders, torn between wanting to shove him back against the wall and ride him until they were both sore and regretted it, and wanting to curl up in his lap and pretend for another ten minutes that this is really him. That they’d won, they’d succeeded. They saved Shiro and he wouldn’t ever be taken again. 

In the end, he does neither. He lifts his head and blinks back the burn in his eyes. The hand that was on Shiro’s dick lifts, fists in Shiro’s hair and he uses that like a guide to tip his head back so that when he rises up on his knees above him, he can pull him into the kiss. It’s nowhere near as furious as earlier; it’s _good_ , though. Shiro’s lips part under the onslaught and he groans, stroking his hands over the line of Keith’s back, sliding up his belly, over his chest like he can’t stop touching him. It’s good, it’s so much better than good that Keith almost lets himself forget. He’s not sure what changed, but his cock is starting to get hard and kissing Shiro feels like a thrill instead of _wrong_. Maybe it’s because it’s really hit that he’s leaving. That there won’t even be a fake Shiro in a few hours and he’s going to have to be the one to break the news. 

He wants, very terribly, to be selfish. To take and take and take, because he knows by just looking at this Shiro that he’d give him anything Keith asked. There’s a heady sort of power to that realization. When he pulls Shiro’s hair, his eyelashes flutter and his lips part on a soft, low groan. Would the real Shiro like that? Keith’d wondered during his more shameful moments, fucking his fist to the idea of Shiro on his knees for him, blissed out when Keith pulled at his hair and hurt him just the right amount. 

It’s not him. _It’s not him_. Keith licks into Shiro’s mouth with a groan and grinds their cocks together, heat sparking up his spine, his body finally reacting the way it’s supposed to. It’d be so easy-- 

But no. Maybe it really is Shiro, because Shiro’s always been the bigger, better person. He ducks away from the next kiss and cups Keith’s face instead of his ass and the difference makes Keith furious for a moment. _Let me make my own shit decisions_ , he wants to say, but knows better. He’s done a lot of things to dislike himself for, but if he does this, he’s not sure he can recover from it. The guilt, when they get Shiro back, would be one thing. Having something for a night and then finding out it was fake - Galra implanted, not _real_ would be too much. 

“I just want things to be easy,” Keith says before he can stop himself, and Shiro presses a gentler kiss to his lips, almost chaste. 

“I want that for you, too,” Shiro murmurs, and just like that, it’s over. Keith knows it, Shiro knows it. Rather than kiss him again, Shiro tugs him into a hug that’s firm without being overwhelming, and kisses the damp mess of Keith’s hair. “Tell him, when I bring him back. Please.” 

Keith doesn’t make any promises and Shiro doesn’t ask again. Instead, they linger a moment longer and then Keith starts to withdraw, not quite able to look him in the eye right now. His lips are kiss-swollen and tingling, skin hot with the fading feeling of Shiro's fingers digging in.

“Here,” Shiro says gently, helping Keith out of his lap, smoothing his hands down his thighs when it’s done, gingerly adjusting himself. “Just-- give me a few seconds and we’ll go watch the movie. I’ll be gone in the morning.” 

It’s not - nothing’s been okay since Keith first broke into the Garrison facility holding Shiro after he landed the first time. It’s not okay, thinking that Shiro’s going to leave again, that he doesn’t know when or where they’re going to find the real Shiro. He doesn’t argue it; they’ve both made their choices. 

Instead, he pulls away to slide a rubber band off his wrist and uses it to tie back his hair. Splashing cold water on his face won’t fix the redness to his eyes, but it makes him feel better to do it. Water slides down along the wet tips of his hair, drips down the nape of his neck, down his back and helps ground him a little bit. “The others are gonna wonder why we didn’t make it there yet.”

Shiro lingers a moment longer, eyes closed and then seems to force himself into action. He rises up and the two of them separate entirely, space between them once more. “We should go,” he agrees quietly, and runs his hand over his jaw, testing the smoothness of it. “I can talk to them tonight if you think it’d help.” 

He could. He could opt out of the hard way again, take the easy way out. Let Shiro handle explaining why he has to leave. That’s not fair, though; he’s done enough running and hiding from explaining things. If Shiro’s going to be the one to leave them, Keith can find a way to explain it to the team. He’s the leader until Shiro gets back; that duty is on him. “I’ve got it. I’ll talk to them in the morning once you’re gone. Let them have this.” 

_Let me have this_. They make their way to the common room where Hunk’s got a giant container of something similar to popped rice instead of corn. The other three are nestled into the couch, buried in a massive pile of blankets and wearing their pajamas; Keith catches sight of a blue lion slipper peeking out. Upon seeing Shiro and Keith, there’s a scramble; they make room for them in a heartbeat, and for the time being, all thoughts about Shiro not being right don’t seem to matter. Lance and Pidge don’t try any more tests, Hunk passes him the popped rice without mentioning anything. For the moment, Keith could almost pretend like things were some sort of normal. Shiro’s a long line of warmth against his side, and under the blankets, his human hand settles over top Keith’s knee and holds there. Nothing else and it never slides higher. After the intro of the movie, Keith’s hand settles on top of it, fingertips sliding into the dips between Shiro’s fingers. 

There’s a chance that this is the real Shiro; that whatever they did to him was so much, so wrong that he forgot parts and pieces of himself and they experimented to the point that the Shiro who escaped wasn’t the same one who Keith knew. The odds of that, after everything, are so low that Keith doesn’t want to calculate it. What it means, though, is if this isn’t his Shiro, it’s still a Shiro. He’s an ally in the hunt for him, and Keith’s going to protect him just the same. 

In the morning, Shiro’s gone and Keith wonders how he planned on protecting him at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hit me up on Twitter to talk about Sheith and shippy shit! I'll be at NYCC, as well. :)

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 2 will be up in a bit! Thanks so much to Brig and Kate for looking over this for me. Find me on twitter over [here](https://twitter.com/SarahKFetter) or at Rose City this weekend.


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